Van
by Faceplant02
Summary: EscaflwonexZoids Remnant scientists from Dornkirk's regime want power. A new Atlantis machine drains power from Zoid Eve to get it. In response Zoid Eve sends Zi's greatest warriors to stop it. Van Flyheight&Fiona Van Fanel&Hitomi Raven
1. Chapter 1

1Hi this is my first ficcy so bear with me as I attempt to write. And remember, the little bluey purpley button at the bottom of the page is your friend so read and review. The rest of the chapters either won't be this long or will be a while in coming, depends on how I feel, what you, the reviewer say. I have a very vague general outline for the story, but I'm writing it mostly off the top of my head so we'll see how this goes.

Alrighty then, now for the disclaimer: I don't own Zoids or Escaflowne, both are the properties of someone else, I'm just borrowing them for my story ). Any characters I make up are free property, I don't care if you use them, just give credit where it's due. I probably won't bother writing this again for the rest of the story, so lets just say this counts for the whole darn thing.

"talking"

(:thinking:)

Edit: I realized after watching the Zoids series over again that Raven's anger towards Van has all but disappeared, so I added one line at the end of the paragraph fourth from the bottom in Raven's thoughts to make this more apparent.

Van Flyheight was stumbling aimlessly through an unfamiliar labyrinth of twisted caverns. One eye blinded by blood dripping from a wound on his forehead, his left arm with a severe gash running from mid bicep to his wrist. (:Figures. Stupid hole. I just finish wiping the Deathsaurer from the face of the planet and am on my way home with Fiona, Zeke, and the Blade Liger and I don't watch where I'm going. But still, it doesn't make sense, the ground we were traveling on should have been solid granite for hundreds of feet down, at least that's what the sensors told me. And one more thing has been bugging me, why didn't the verniers on the Blade Liger fire when I activated them? Sure, I mean, being fired out of the gravity cannon probably did a number on them, but Zeke would have seen that and repaired it immediately, no problem. Uuuugggg! I'm too tired to think right now, not to mention hungry too. I'm just glad that Zeke got Fiona out before the Liger crashed, too bad he's only got room for one in there though.:) "Hey, now that looks like a good spot to lie down," commented Van, now reduced to talking to himself out of sheer boredom. He was pointing to a small grassy clearing just outside of the caves he was navigation. "Oooh and daylight too," Van exclaimed "glad to be out of those caves!" As Van stepped out into the brilliant sun he also noticed a small, crystal clear river running nearby, "Heh, figures, I've gone and found myself a little peace of paradise, well almost, except for the fact that I'm missing my friends! Aaaaarrrgggggg!" Van yelled as he kicked at the ground in frustration. "Owowowow! Ah, whatever," Van sighed, "I can sort this out after a little nap; right here looks good." Van promptly plopped down in the grass and fell asleep almost as soon as he laid his head down onto the ground.

"You finally did it Van!" Fiona exclaimed from the back seat of the Blade Liger, "you beat the Deathsaurer!"

"Alright already," Van said with a chuckle "you've said that at least ten times by now."

"I know," Fiona said back with a giggle, "but it's still so unreal to me that I just have to keep saying it." "Oh, wow!" Fiona murmured, "Look at that sunset Van isn't it just gorgeous!"

"Yeah, it sure is," he replied. After a few minutes of complete silence, just looking at the view Fiona spoke up.

"Uh, Van" she said sort of hesitantly as if she was unsure of what she was actually going to say. "Yes, Fiona," Van asked curiously. "Uuumm, I've... I've been wanting to ask you something for a little while now..." Fiona trailed off.

"Sure, what is it Fiona," Van said, encouraging her to continue.

"I, uuumm... that is, I have uuuhhh... I mean I... will you..." Fiona paused, blushing, and sighed a little to collect herself, all the while Van sat patiently waiting for Fiona to finish saying what was on her mind. "Will you..." Fiona started again, "will you marry me?"

Van froze in his seat and Fiona hid her face in embarrassment. Van slowly started to turn around in his seat, unbuckling and getting up on his knees to look over the chair back at the young woman who had just asked him to be with her forever.

That was when it all came crashing down. The Blade Liger suddenly broke through the ground and tumbled downward ricocheting uncontrolled from wall to wall in a narrow gap. Van's mind was phased only for a moment after the initial impact as he quickly spun around in his chair while being knocked around the cockpit. Van tried frantically to work the Liger's claws into the walls, but he could find no purchase and his attempts only served to flip the Liger upside down. Then he yanked the blades out hoping that they might catch on something and slow his fall, but the walls were too far apart. Thinking quickly, Van pushed the vernier throttle all the way up, but nothing happened. Stunned for a second Van looked "up" and saw the bottom of the hole coming rapidly to meet him, at the last possible second Van turned his head and yelled "GET HER OUT OF HERE ZEKE, NOOOWW!" Van saw Fiona, a look of pure terror on her face, suddenly fuse into Zeke's familiar silver light and disappear. When Van whipped his head around to attempt to right the liger one last time he saw he was too late, the ground met him, and the world blanked out.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Van shot upright, screaming and covered from head to foot in sweat, shivering uncontrollably. "Uuuugggg," Van moaned aloud. (:Yeah that was what happened all right, but then, how did I survive that crash:) Van wondered to himself. "Eeeaaaaarrrrrrgg," Van let out a huge yawn and rubbed his eyes after he had calmed down a bit. (:You know, that river looks really tempting right now, I feel very sweaty and I probably stink too. Who knows how long I was in those caves.:) Without hesitation Van stripped to his boxers and jumped into the river. "Ooooh man this water feels great, it's got to be about seventy degrees in here, not a hot spring, but certainly not too cold either," Van sighed to himself in contentment. After a nice long relaxing bath van laid out on the grass to dry off and started to drift off to sleep again, which is exactly why he didn't hear the horse hooves coming.

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King Van Fanel of Fanelia has been out in the backcountry of his kingdom for four days searching for the source of a pillar of light that appeared out here. When he first saw the pillar from his palace Van Fanel thought it was Hitomi finally coming back to see him again, but after a few minutes of actual thinking after he had gotten on his horse, Quicksilver, and come out searching, Lord Van realized that Hitomi would have been able to direct her thoughts and come straight to Fanelia's capitol. Not only that but upon looking at the sky Van realized that the pillar of light could not have originated from the Mystic Moon, because the angle from which the pillar approached Gaia was far off of alignment with Hitomi's home world. But he still felt a responsibility within himself to check out anything that had a connection with Atlantis. (:Who could it possibly be:) Van wondered to himself for what must have been the hundredth time.

Suddenly Van heard a scream that was definitely too masculine to be Hitomi's and he took off in the direction where he thought it came from. King Van stumbled upon the clearing in a little over a half an hour of hard riding. (:Geez, sounds sure do travel for miles around the mountains here, I almost could have sworn the voice came from only a few hundred yards away.:) As Van broke through the forest edge he halted and dismounted Quicksilver immediately and found himself looking on a site that certainly was not what he had expected. There on the grass lay a wounded man, who must have been in his late teens early twenties, sprawled on the ground with a dragonfly on his nose. At first he thought the man might be dead, but upon looking closer noticed that the stranger was simply sleeping peacefully. At Lord Van's approach however, the insect took off, tickling the man's nose and causing him to sneeze himself out of his slumber.

"Hi there," the king of Fanelia greeted the half awake stranger with a small chuckle.

"Huh," mumbled the man, looking up to see a fuzzy red and tan blotch in his vision. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and sitting up the stranger's eyes were finally able to focus on the young Fanelian king, "Oh, uh... hi," were the next coherent words that came out of his mouth in reply to the king's introduction.

Van Fanel might have laughed outright at the sight if he still weren't so concerned about hearing the scream earlier and voiced that concern immediately, "Did you happen to hear a sharp scream out here about a half an hour ago or was that you?"

"Scream..." the stranger thought for a moment "oh yeah, sorry, that was me," the stranger replied sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck and then standing up and brushing himself off, "I just fell asleep out here and was having a nightmare, that's all; I hope I didn't worry you too much. The name's Van, Van Flyheight," he said by way of introducing himself extending his hand to shake Van Fanel's.

The king let a smirk play across his face for a moment before grabbing Flyheight's outstretched hand and replying in turn, "My name is Van as well, just spoken a little differently. Van Fanel, I am king of these lands we are currently standing on, Fanelia. Tell me, how did you get here?" Fanel had a sneaking suspicion he knew, this was roughly the direction the pillar appeared in, but he had to know for sure. However, he grew more and more certain as he watched each shocked and confused expression flash across Flyheight's face.

(:King Van Fanel? There's no king Van Fanel on Zi, heck there aren't any kings period on Zi. And I have never, ever heard of a nation called Fanelia. Ooookaaayyy... that only leaves one of three possibilities left: I am awake and am having one doozy of a hallucination, or I'm asleep dreaming one of the oddest dreams of my life, or...:) Flyheight shuddered at this thought (:I'm not even on Zi anymore.:) "I'm afraid, king Fanel, sir, that I really have no idea how on Zi I got here or even where here is in relation to any place I know. All I do know is that I was falling and as I hit the ground I just blanked out. I woke up who knows how long ago a ways back in that cave," Flyheight explained, jerking his thumb back at the cave entrance.

Following his gut instinct Fanel asked his next question: "When you blanked out did you happen to catch a glimpse of light just before you lost consciousness?"

"Light?" Flyheight wondered aloud thinking back hard, "There may have... Wait. I saw my self surrounded by a bright flash and I felt almost weightless for a second, but I thought I was dying or something."

(:So he is the one who came.:) Fanel thought to himself while Flyheight sat waiting for a response of some kind.

"Well," the king started, "I don't really know how to put this to you easily but, whatever planet you came from, you traveled here to Gaia by way of what is simply called Pillar of Light, for lack of a better term."

"Ooooohhhhhh boooooyyyyyyy," the zoid pilot groaned to himself and tilted his head back in annoyance. (:I knew it, I knew it, I just couldn't get myself the easy way out of this one could I, nope. Oh well it beats being dead.:) "Okay, let me get this straight: I got sent from Zi to, what did you call this planet... Gaia, right; to Gaia by a shiny pillar of light? And from what I can tell by the way you just talked I take it that I'm not the first one that this has happened to either, right?"

"You are correct," Fanel confirmed, "however there is some hope to cling to: the only other person this has happened to has found a way back to her own world, so there's a chance that the same can be done for you."

"Phew, I was really starting to get worried for a minute there," Flyheight said with noticeable relief in his voice.

"Might I remind you," Fanel interjected, "that I only said that there is a chance, it is not a certainty."

"I know," Flyheight returned, grinning, "but I'm certain that we'll find that way."

Fanel looked at the zoid pilot in curious confusion, "How can you be so sure?"

"Simple," Flyheight's face turned somber and determined, "I have to, I have someone very important to me I have to return to, I can't afford not to."

It was Fanel's turn to grin, "You're right, we will find a way." (:I know that determination I see in your eyes, it's the same way I felt when I broke free of the Zone of Absolute Fortune to go looking for Hitomi at the end of the war.:)

Simultaneously the two men grinned and extended their right arms in friendship and clasped each-other's forearms. The two men just seemed to hit it off right away for no real reason in particular, they were simply two kindred spirits thrown together by fate. "Alrighty then 'Your Majesty', I'm assuming that since these are your lands that you know your way back to civilization of some sort."

"Certainly, however I should really take a look at your arm and head you look a little banged up there."

"I thought you said you were a king not a doctor?"

"I have a little field experience, now sit yourself down." When it looked as though Flyheight would blow his injuries off as nothing the king rebuked him, "That's an order 'Commoner.'"

Flyheight groaned, "Okay I guess I had that one coming to me." Once Fanel had gotten field dressings on Flyheight it was time to leave.

"Okay, I still want my medics back at the castle to have a look at those when we get back. Now get on the horse 'Commoner.'"

Flyheight chuckled and jumped on Quicksilver behind where Fanel had already seated himself, "You know, it is possible to overuse a joke."

Fanel just grinned, "Hold on tight," Fanel said before taking off nearly throwing poor Flyheight off the back. "We're about an hour's hard ride outside of the capital," Fanel said, then he suddenly laughed. "My advisors are probably worried sick about me, I left without saying anything. I mean I left a note for the cleanup staff to find on my bed stand telling them I was looking for the Pillar of Light, but I've been gone about three hours, so..."

"You mean to tell me I was stuck in those caves for only three hours! It felt like three days!" Flyheight shouted right in Fanel's ear.

"Ooowwww! Don't yell! Yes you were." Fanel replied peeved for a moment rubbing his sore ear.

"Oops, sorry," Flyheight apologized.

"It's okay. I should be used to it by now with the way Merle always yells in my ear."

"Merle? Someone you know I assume?"

"Merle's my best friend and has been since way back before I can remember."

"That's pretty cool," Flyheight said, suddenly getting curious and trying to keep his mind off of Fiona he asked: "So who was this other person who came here before me, by Pillar of Light I mean?"

"Oh, her name was Hitomi, she came from the Mystic Moon." Seeing Fanel pause in thought as to what to say next Flyheight asked the only obvious question on his mind:

"What's the Mystic Moon?"

"Oops, sorry," the king said with a sheepish grin, "do you see the two moons up in our sky?"

"Yeah."

"I'll give you one good guess as to which moon is the 'mystic' one."

"I gotcha. So Hitomi came from the green and blue moon up there."

"Yep, although Hitomi says that up there everyone calls the Mystic Moon Earth."

"Really? So what do Hitomi's people call your planet?"

"Actually," Fanel replied, "for some reason or other noone from the Mystic Moon's surface can actually see Gaia in their skies, or so I'm told by Hitomi. The two times I was on the Mystic Moon I was too preoccupied to look up."

"You went up to the Mystic Moon?" Flyheight inquired.

"Well, don't ask me how I got there the first time, it wasn't by Pillar of Light so I haven't got a clue, it was like some hole in space just ripped open and I just stepped through."

"Wait a minute," Flyheight cut in, "you just said you didn't have a clue and then you described it, how does that work?" The zoid pilot was grinning to himself, knowing he was just giving the king a hard time of it.

"You know darn well what I was talking about you bonehead," Fanel returned jokingly, catching on quickly, but explained anyway "I know what happened I just don't know how it happened. It just did."

"Riiiiggggghhhtt," Flyheight said grinning even wider now. "Shut up you," was the punishing reply. At this Flyheight burst out laughing and Fanel joined in.

After the laughing fit was done the king continued, "The second time I went up to the Mystic Moon I rode Escaflowne what felt like half way and then a Pillar of Light grabbed us and sent us the rest. The first time I visited was only for about five minutes and the second time was more like five seconds."

"What's an Escaflowne," Van asked.

"Escaflowne is my guymelef, sort of a human shaped giant machine," Fanel answered.

"Pardon me if I sound stupid, but unless you have some serious verniers on that machine I don't see how a human shaped robot could ever get off the ground much less go to a moon."

"Well, Escaflowne is special, it can transform into a dragon and fly to unbelievable heights, even Zaibach's cloaked armors couldn't go as high or as fast as the Escaflowne. And before you ask Flyheight, Zaibach is the most technologically advanced empire on this planet. I don't know what you mean by verniers and I can't say that I know exactly how the invisible Zaibach armors were built either (we never did figure out their cloaking technology in the first place) but my guess is that those armors incorporated levistones into their makeup so they can just hover and move around using those."

"Um, what are levistones?"

The king sighed and buried his face into the palm of his hand but leaving his eyes unblocked so that he could still see where Quicksilver was going. "Levistones are what they sound like, floating stones, levitating stones, ergo levistones."

"Oh," was the only response made for a moment, "we don't have anything like that on Zi." After a few moments silence Van piped up "But we do have giant machines on Zi, it's just that they're in the shape of animals not humans. We call our machines zoids and mine is a Blade Liger. Although mine is a little special too, well it's rare, but that's not what I meant and in actuality it's not anything about the Blade Liger itself that I'm talking about being special. Rather it's my partner Zeke, who fuses with the Blade Liger giving the Blade Liger enhanced speed, strength, and fighting capabilities."

"That was a mouthful," came the expected smart comment from Fanel. To which Flyheight, after catching his breath, made a face at the back of the king's head, sticking out his tongue and with one hand pulling down the skin below his right eye in a classic anime insult, all the while using the other hand to hold on to the horse to keep from very nearly falling off. "When you say that Zeke fuses with your blade liger do you mean he gets in and helps you pilot," Fanel asked, curious.

"Sort of, he does help me pilot a little but what he does is integrate himself directly with the rest of the systems of the blade liger essentially becoming a part of the zoid."

"How can a human do that?"

"Oh yeah I forgot to tell you that Zeke isn't a human he is a smaller special type of zoid called an organoid, that's how."

"Then who pilots Zeke," Fanel asked confused.

"Noone does, Zeke can think and act on his own. I mean all zoids are sentient and can act independently to a certain degree, but organoids take that to another level. All zoids are friends to their pilots, or would be if the pilots would just open their eyes and see their zoids as more than just machines," Flyheight sighed. "In order to bring out a zoid's full potential, with an organoid or without, you have to get to really know your zoid, not just the mechanics and workings of it but also its little quirks and behaviors."

"I understand. I have the same relationship with Escaflowne. It truly allows for a more powerful and effective combat strategy, and, during lulls in the fighting, even though Escaflowne can't speak I always feel its companionship when it's near me. And sometimes…" Fanel thought back with a smirk to when Zaibach had captured himself, Hitomi, Allen, and the Escaflowne. When that wretched empire had attempted to dismantle the Escaflowne, how, with Hitomi's help he had been able to call to his guymelef and cause it to move, "…even when it's not so near me."

"Mm hm," Flyheight agreed.

"Anyway we were talking about Hitomi. Hitomi actually first came to Gaia when I returned from my first trip to the Mystic Moon, after slaying the land dragon."

"What!" Flyheight shouted in Fanel's ear again, or would have had Fanel not instantly covered his ears at Flyheight's sudden tightening of his grip on the king's shoulder, "sorry again," Flyheight said realizing his mistake before he continued, "you mean to tell me that there are real dragons here on Gaia?"

"Uh huh," was all Flyheight got in answer. "After she saved me from being skewered by the dragon's tail with her ability to tell the future," normally Flyheight might have had another outburst at this point, but after the previous incident he used one of his hands to clamp his mouth shut and simply nodded, accepting the fact that there were some new and crazy things on this world, "I was able to kill the dragon, and removed the dragenergist from it. A dragenergist, or energist for short, is a stone that is essentially the dragon's heart, it gives off tremendous amounts of energy and we use them to power our guymelefs. The two of us were then transported back to Gaia in the middle of nowhere by a Pillar of Light. Upon my arrival back in Fanelia I was coronated the new king as per right of dragon slaying since my father had recently died. Shortly thereafter Zaibach attacked and burned the city to the ground. I later learned that a large number of the citizens escaped unharmed, thank goodness. As for Hitomi and myself, we were saved after I activated Escaflowne by slitting my thumb and mixing my blood with the energist and inserting the energist into Escaflowne. The blood pact is necessary for the royal guymelef. We fought for a while and I saw my good friend and mentor, Balgus, die right in front of my eyes, after that another Pillar appeared and took us to another location on Gaia." Van Fanel continued to tell the rest of the Vision of Escaflowne saga from his own perspective and then to his recent supervision of the rebuilding of Fanelia after the war and his trip out to where he found Flyheight. He had finished summarizing the whole thing about an hour later.

Flyheight paused a moment as he digested all the information he had just acquired. "Sounds like quite the experience," Flyheight said. "I suppose it's my turn now. My adventure started a little about four or five years ago it started as a pretty much normal day for me," Flyheight began, "I was bored so I left the Wind Colony, my home village, for a day in some old ruins, my favorite pastime. On my way there I got attacked by some bandits, with this one jerk in a Guysack, a scorpion-like zoid chasing me and shooting at me all the way to the ruins as I barely dodge the guy's shots by zigzagging the hoverboard left and right. I had the hoverboard running at full thrust so I was able to ride it right up the side of the ruined building, the Guysack firing at me the whole way. It turns out that the shots knocked loose some debris that fell on top of the Guysack trapping it and the pilot inside while I went inside the ruins to get away from him. As I was walking around I noticed a new door, I'd been inside this particular ruins a couple of times before then but the shooting must've knocked some concealing stones loose, that led down to a secret room. When I got into the room I found a power switch and flipped it for fun, boy was I surprised to find that all the power was still working in the room. I noticed that in the center of the room there were two human size capsules. As I started poking around I saw that inside of one of them was a small wild zoid. This was a very rare thing to find as most zoids found these days were military runaways. But this zoid was definitely not a military runaway; it had never been touched before. After some more searching I finally managed to open the capsule and the zoid just tumbled out, however it only took a few seconds for it to finally wake up and activate, it was like he was just born or something. I was so excited, I'd never had my own zoid before so I tried to talk to it and convince it to come with me. Well the little guy wasn't buying it; he promptly spins around and whaps me with his tail. I figured that was ok though, I mean, come on, he was just born and here I am some strange kid asking him to come with me. After I recovered I tried to convince him again, offering to call him Zeke, yes this is the same Zeke I was talking about yesterday, after what my dad had called his own zoid. My dad had died a while back, fighting with his Command Wolf, his zoid, to keep the Wind Colony safe from other ruffians. Shortly after I found Zeke the same Guysack from earlier crashed the far wall down and charged in. Upon seeing Zeke he tried to steal him, I, however, wasn't going to let him anywhere near my new friend and stood between the Guysack and Zeke, not really sure what to do but I had to do something. I was quickly knocked aside and into the far wall, my vision went blurry for a minute or two, but when I was able to see again I saw Zeke ramming the Guysack, having little to no effect. I yelled at Zeke to stop and run but the little zoid just kept on pounding until the Guysack finally managed to sledgehammer him into the wall next to me as well. Desperate I grabbed a flailing power cable in the room and rammed it into the Guysack, electrocuting the whole thing, pilot included. Unfortunately that still wasn't enough and as Zeke got back up he motioned to me to get on his back. Once I did Zeke suddenly opened up hidden rocket boosters on his shoulders and underside, shooting us both out of the ruins over top of the Guysack. Once back out in the desert Zeke dropped me in an old beat up Shield Liger. It was an absolute wreck, covered with dust and having absolutely no power left in it. It must have been out there for years, but still Zeke motioned to me to get ready and pilot the thing, I questioned him and he simply nodded his head then suddenly jetted up again. A moment later Zeke rocketed back down and fused with the Shield Liger, to my complete and utter amazement the systems began lighting back up, the power turning on, the rust turning back to normal metal, the sand disappearing, and the canopy, which had been nonexistent suddenly formed over my head and the entire zoid began to stand up and roared. Upon finding that I could actually pilot the zoid I easily, with Zeke's help of course, trounced first the Guysack, and then the two other zoids that were with it sending them all running away with their tails between their legs. After the fight Zeke and I returned to the ruins to open up the second capsule. When we opened this one up we found that not a zoid stepped out, but a girl, a little human girl. This was my first introduction to Fiona." From here on out Van Flyheight imparted the details of the entire Chaotic Century and Guardian Force series and then up until his meeting with Fanel.

Van Flyheight finished his story telling just as they came into sight of Fanelia's new castle at sunset. "Wow," Flyheight said as he saw the city below him, truly amazed at the sight. After a few minutes of staring the zoid pilot's face saddened, "I wish Fiona was here to see this with me."

Nodding knowingly the king nudged Quicksilver, instructing the horse to continue into the city. Upon his return to the royal stables Fanel was about to be swarmed by his advisor's questions when they noticed the king's passenger.

"Lord Van! Hitomi!" a child-like voice called from outside. The owner of the voice finally forced herself through the mob of the king's advisors and stopped. Merle's smile fell in disappointment when she noticed that her childhood friend and king had not in fact returned with Hitomi, but another stranger. "Lord Van, who's this," the cat-girl asked as Fanel finished removing the bridle and reins from Quicksilver. Fanel chuckled at his friend's blatant curiosity while Flyheight just looked on with a slightly befuddled expression on his face.

"This is the person who came through the Pillar of Light, Merle," Fanel replied, completely ignoring the shocked look the one advisor gave him for not addressing the advisors first, Fanel made a personal note to himself to break in all the new advisors shortly. At seeing this Flyheight smiled, all the pieces falling into place in his mind.

Looking up at his advisors and then back to Merle, Fanel spoke "Merle, why don't you keep our new guest company for a while, it seems I have a few questions to answer, but first see him to the medical center."

"Oooohhhh, alright," the cat-girl replied, a little disappointed, she wanted to spend some quality time with her childhood friend, "so long as you promise me one thing."

"And what would that be," the king turned to Merle, curious.

"The three of us get some food first, I'm hungry, you're more of a toothpick than ever, and I can hear the new guy's stomach from here."

As if on cue Flyheight's gut made an unusually loud complaint and the zoid pilot just looked sheepishly at his new friends. The advisors grumbled and left the three alone, demanding an explanation later. One hour, a feast, and a trip to the medical center later Fanel was off with his advisors and Merle was keeping Flyheight company. "Hey," Merle suddenly spoke up, "I don't think I ever got your name."

"My name's Van Flyheight, and you're Merle, right? King Van told me all about you."

"What do you mean ALL?" Merle huffed. Flyheight just laughed. Merle smiled fiendishly and extended her hand in friendship. Flyheight accepted, but got a rude awakening when she suddenly started squeezing his hand, a smirk growing on her face. "What's the matter? Having trouble with a little hand shake are we," she asked innocently.

Finally understanding the situation Flyheight returned the favor, or rather, attempted to. The little cat-girl was just too much for him and a few minutes later a snickering Merle looked on as the zoid pilot attempted to shake some feeling back into his incapacitated hand. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself," Merle apologized knowing she probably hadn't made too good a first impression.

"It's ok, I've been victim to worse than that," Flyheight replied, grinning.

Laughing, Merle ran off beckoning for her new friend to follow her into the city streets, she just had to show him all her favorite haunts. Merle led Flyheight to each store and house in Fanelia that she knew, which took a while because she knew most of them. Having introduced the zoid pilot to about 98 percent of the kingdom's population, the cat-girl took him out to the city limits and some nice spots along the countryside.

Merle was just about to go and show Flyheight the mountain paths when a horse came barreling down the main road and through the main gates that opened at its appearance, it's rider severely wounded and barely hanging on. Tired as Flyheight was he was concerned for the well being of the man.

Merle and Flyheight took off up the path to the castle following the path the wounded rider took ignoring the stares of the townsfolk as they went. (:I wonder what happened to him, I hope he'll be alright:) the thoughts of all the people mirrored one another's as they made way for the critical condition messenger to get to the castle. Fortunately the man did not have to ride the whole way as word had already reached the castle and interrupted the young king's meeting causing Fanel to race directly down from his meeting room to the disturbance. Flyheight and Merle caught up to Fanel about the time that three royal guards had managed to get the man dismounted and on to a stretcher that the medics had brought right behind the king. The doctors were about to rush the messenger to the infirmary, but the man cried out that he had to speak to King Fanel, the medics tried to reason with him, but he resisted. They finally relented after making him promise to calm down for fear of worsening his own condition.

After the messenger calmed himself Fanel approached and the man turned his head and inclined it slightly in a show of what respect he could muster in his weakened state. "My Lord, Basraam is gone."

The eyes of everyone in hearing distance of these words shot open in disbelief. Fanel quickly regained his composure "Who did this?"

"I- It was a dragon, my Lord; a giant black dragon. A-al-almost like a mockery of your own my Lord, and yet it was not."

"What!" Fanel cried out in shock. (:He's not talking about any real dragon, he's referring to Escaflowne! A black Ispano guymelef attacked and destroyed Basraam? Who could have been piloting it and where would they have gotten it:) Voicing his concern Fanel spoke, "do you happen to know who was piloting the guymelef, or the allegiance of the attacker?"

After several moments of silence the medics moved in to check the man and they quickly moved him off to the medical center while one stayed behind to inform the king that the messenger should be ok if they treated him immediately. Fanel nodded and dismissed the medic retaining a pensive look on his face (:This is not good. That man was part of the escort for the local trading convoy that my advisors authorized to start out just three days ago.:) "Colonel Reshim!" the king snapped, "Get a search party together to find any other possible survivors of the convoy!"

"Yessir!"

"General Narsima, I want all troops on high alert status!"

"Yessir!"

"I will not be caught off guard this time," the king muttered to himself. "Captain Cid…" a soldier in his early thirties gulped noticeably. "Go inform my advisors I'm going out to check on this myself, and tell them I'm restarting Escaflowne."

"Yessir."

(:I feel sorry for him but if I told them myself they'd slow me down with so many questions that I'd never get off the ground. Besides the Captain's fast on his feet, he should be able to outrun those hotheaded bureaucrats, I hope.:)

Fanel went to follow his departing men up the slope to the castle to get his energist and go to stables to ride Quicksilver out to the royal family burial grounds where he had left Escaflowne. As he turned some dust that had been kicked up by Captain Cid's departure got into his eyes and when he tried to blink it out in his mind's eye he saw Hitomi's pendant swing. Van Fanel spun in the direction the pendulum pointed and came face to face with Flyheight. (:What! Am I supposed to take him with me? I suppose he must have been brought here for a reason.:) "Come on Flyheight."

As Fanel and Flyheight started up the slope Merle came bounding after them, leaving the crowd of curious onlookers behind. "No Merle."

"Lord Van," Merle whined.

"I won't put you or anyone else in anymore danger than is necessary, and it is not necessary for you to come," Fanel instructed.

"Yes Lord Van," Merle acceded. "Lord Van," Merle spoke up once more.

"Yes Merle," Fanel asked, the sternness in his voice gone.

"Be careful."

"I will."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back on Zi:

Van turned his head and yelled "GET HER OUT OF HERE ZEKE, NOOOWW!" In the next instant Fiona felt herself pulled backwards into the metal casing of Zeke's organoid body and felt the extra G's of Zeke boosting out of the Blade Liger at full throttle.

That is, her body felt all of those things, but her mind was still overwhelmed with terror, not for fear of her own life, but fear of losing the life of the man she loved. (:Vvvvaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn! Nnnnooooooooooo:) As soon as Zeke landed on the surface above the crack he let Fiona out, who stumbled to the ground and screamed at the top of her lungs "Vvvvvvvvvvvaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn!" His own zoid mind riddled with fear for his best friend Zeke immediately powered up his rockets again to go after him. At the top of his arc and ready to come hurtling down Zeke suddenly swerved and plowed headlong into the ground as a giant explosion rocked the surrounding area.

However it wasn't the explosion that had stopped Zeke, no it was the column of light that appeared right before, so brilliant it was almost tangible. Fiona watched in awe and horror as she saw the light and watched helplessly as Zeke crashed hard into the ground. Then the world shook as the Blade Liger exploded on contact with the canyon floor. The ground beneath Fiona wrenched up and threw her backwards, landing her beside Zeke, unconscious.

Reese suddenly started; her back stiff as a board and her muscles taut.

"Reese? Reese what's wrong," Raven asked, concern for the blue haired Ancient Zoidian written all over his face.

"Van," she replied, whispering, "something's wrong with Van, and Fiona too."

"Huh," Raven asked, thoroughly confused, "But Flyheight and I just trashed the Deathsaurer, what could possibly be wrong with him?"

"I don't know but we have to find them Raven."

"Already on it sweetie," the words came out of Raven's mouth in a wry tone before he realized what he was saying. Both he and Reese blushed as Raven quickly diverted all power to the Genobreaker's thrusters letting Reese's hands guide the controls as she could connect on some deeper level with Fiona and therefore find her fastest, and, they assumed, Flyheight right along with her. The Genobreaker, with Shadow fused and Specula following behind, reached Fiona's location about five hours later, she was still asleep, but Zeke stood guard and watched them come in.

"Raven wait," Reese said and grabbed Raven's hand as he was about set down the Genobreaker.

"Huh?"

"Raven look over there, that gap, it's out of place, something tells me the ground is unstable around here, it might be aquifers."

"Right, I'll go take a look," Raven replied, going to take the Genobreaker over and down into the large hole, Reese stopped him again and he looked at her questioningly.

"We should grab Fiona and Zeke first, the ground beneath them could collapse at any second."

"You're right, but they would never fit in here, it's already a little tight in here, no offense," Raven added as Reese started to get mad, taking his comment the wrong way, but to no avail. "I mean this cockpit was made for one person, the fact that you can fit in here with me is a testament to how lithe you are," Raven yammered hoping not to upset Reese any further. Reese relented and turned away with a little grin on her face struggling to keep from laughing.

"I suppose if you flew slowly we could let them ride on top," Reese thought out loud.

"But, uh… oh… ah whatever, how are we going to get them up top when we can't set down?"

"Are you always this dense Raven, Zeke is a very capable organoid he can fly them both up there and make sure they stay." Raven hovered the Genobreaker over near Zeke and Fiona's position, the roar of the thrusters waking Fiona up.

Reese opened the hatch, stood up, leaned out, and yelled to the two on the ground, "Zeke, grab Fiona and rocket up to ride on top of the Genobreaker, we're not sure how much longer the ground will hold up!" Zeke and Fiona nodded assent and Zeke opened up, allowing Fiona to step in and then he turned on his boosters and flew up on top of the Genobreaker.

Reese closed the cockpit hatch and sat back down on Raven's lap, unbeknownst to her Raven was blushing from the view he had for the last few seconds. "They're on," Reese said.

"Right," was the only reply she got as Raven pulled the Genobreaker's controls so that the zoid turned around towards the large hole in the ground. Raven gently let the Genobreaker down the hole to the bottom several hundred meters below where the wreck of the Blade Liger lay. "Oh man, that's worse off than when I hit the Shield Liger with the Genosaurer's charged particle gun." Raven set the Genobreaker down, figuring that if the Blade Liger hit it from falling and the ground hadn't collapsed it would support the weight of the Genobreaker easily. Raven opened the hatch and he and Reese jumped out to look at the damage to see Fiona and Zeke had already jumped off, separated, and were now looking at the wrecked Blade Liger with looks of those who had just lost everything.

"Van!" Raven called out in vain hopes that he might get some sort of response, although they had been enemies for the entire Deathsaurer conflict the annoying guy had started to grow on him, though he would never admit that to anyone. Shadow defused and Specula landed and the six of them began to walk up to the charred remains of the Blade Liger. The entire zoid was charred black, even the normally brilliant yellow blades were darkened, well what was left of the blades anyway. Both had snapped off, the left one was missing and the right one had struck a large rocky jut in such a way that it had flipped up and then come back down piercing through the lower jaw of the Blade Liger and exiting into the cockpit. The zoid core had detonated on impact, ripping open the body of the Blade Liger, Raven imagined it made a huge explosion seeing as the left rear leg was imbedded a good meter into the solid rock wall.

That last fact was what had Raven worried and confused most of all, for the Blade Liger to have fallen through the ground and come this far down he had expected to see a whole stratified set of catacombs down here, but it was just one very, very long hole. Beside the fact that the nature of the hole was odd in and of itself, the chances that Flyheight, whom Raven had deemed the luckiest man on Zi among other things, would have hit this one patch of ground out of the entire wasteland were astronomical.

While Raven had been standing there contemplating the oddities of the situation Reese had gotten back into the Genobreaker and lifted the head of the Blade Liger about two meters off the ground straight up using the breaker claws so that they could get at the cockpit. Fiona immediately scrambled underneath the Blade Liger's head and looked up, tears brimming in her eyes, somewhat hoping she would find Van, and somewhat hoping she wouldn't find him meaning that he had somehow miraculously escaped or had been vaporized instantly so that he didn't suffer. There wasn't much left of the cockpit, the canopy had shattered on impact and the insides were all charred and half melted, but there was no way of telling what of it was Van's. Fiona collapsed on the ground and began sobbing. (:I can't feel him anymore. He's gone. Gone.:)

Zeke walked up beside her, not breaking down in his own sorrow only in an attempt to support the young woman he had known for his whole life. Something caught his eye, hooked around the only remaining control rod was the knife that Van always carried around with him. Zeke stepped up to inspect it, the leather case, handle wrap, and tether had been incinerated and the metal was singed, but overall it was in fairly good condition. He grabbed the knife handle and lifted it off the control rod gingerly, then turned to Fiona. Her eyes full of tears she turned her face to Zeke when he approached. "Huh Zeke? What's that?"

She still couldn't see clearly, her tears blurring her vision. She wiped her arm across her eyes with her arm and looked again. Fiona's eyes lit up when she recognized Van's knife; she reached for it and Zeke laid the precious object in her hands. As she cradled the knife to her chest she recalled in her mind the first time she had seen it. (:It was right after the cargo transport Dr. D and I were in was ambushed. Van found us and took us to the Wind Colony. I remember seeing this knife hanging on the wall. He said it was his dad's.:)

Reese, meanwhile, had hopped out of the Genobreaker, letting it sit as a support to the Liger head, and walked over to Specula. "I don't understand," Reese said to Specula, "why after all the pain, and hardship, and other obstacles he's overcome, why was he fated to die like this. And more importantly," Reese turned to look at Raven who was climbing into the Genobreaker himself now, " why does it have Raven so upset. Shouldn't he be happy Flyheight's dead, they were rivals."

Specula chided her and growled an answer.

"Oh, of course you're right Specula. It's because Raven wasn't the one who killed him."

Specula growled again, "quit thinking about these things master, it's not your strong point and that makes you upset. Sure you're brilliant in tactics and mind manipulations, but when it comes to the human heart you have no idea what you are getting into."

Reese looked slightly shocked and annoyed at her organoid companion. "Perhaps," Reese allowed and calmed herself.

Raven leaped into the cockpit control chair for the Genobreaker. (:The breaker claws are slipping, Reese forgot to set the hydraulic locks. Much as I'd love to erase all memory of Flyheight's existence from the face of Zi this wouldn't be right. Thoughts along those lines belong to another person, someone who died when Shadow was turned to stone.:)

Zeke noticed the Liger head start to drop and quickly grabbed Fiona and dashed out from underneath it. Raven attempted to work the controls, but they wouldn't respond.

"Shadow! Get your metal rear over here, the controls aren't responding," Raven shouted as the breaker claws released completely and the liger head dropped back to the ground. Shadow jetted up and back down to fuse with the Genobreaker.

Light flared from the fusion process, but it didn't recede when it was finished. A Pillar of Light had shot down from the heavens and enveloped the Genobreaker. Suddenly it grew, it grew to the size of the entire hole, pulsing around everything inside. And when the light abated the only thing left was the hole. No Genobreaker, no Raven, no Shadow, no Reese, no Specula, no Fiona, no Zeke, no Blade Liger parts, nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

'Gasp!'…Could it really be? Is it humanly possible! Is it really truly here! I did it! I finally finished the second chapter to my story! Yaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!

As before:

"talking"

(:thinking:)

And new:

'Organoid speech'

Brief AN: Since neither the movie nor the series covers the subject of Hitomi's father, in this story he exists but is not here right now. I may introduce him later in the story. Also none of this story has been BETA read so any and all criticisms and comments are welcome, especially the constructive kind. Please no flames; I'm still new at this.

Thanks to all who read my story even if you didn't review. And now, happy reading:

Hitomi Kanzaki couldn't sleep. Captain Amano and Yukari have been going out regularly for two months now and she was very happy for them. However, seeing them together made her realize just how much she missed Van. She had been able to manage being apart up until recently. It had only been three months since her return from Gaea, but now whenever she saw not just Yukari and Amano but any couple together it nearly brought her to tears.

(:I promised him I would be strong, but I just can't take it anymore.:) Hitomi sat up in her bed and looked at her alarm clock. (:Great it's 3 am. I'm going to be so tired tomorrow…er today. Ah whatever.:)

She turned to look out her bedroom window into the sky in the direction of the ocean. When she blinked an image of her beloved's smiling face flashed through her mind. Uncontrollable tears welled up in her eyes as the image faded into the distant sky. She dashed out of her room, through the hallways of her home and out the front door towards the ocean beyond.

Hitomi blinked her eyes in a futile effort to see clearly and broke into a full run. Buildings whizzed past unnoticed by the high school sprinter as she focused her blurred vision on the sidewalk in front of her. As she crossed the footbridge to the beach a white pillar of light appeared in front of her just off shore and she pushed herself even harder as she hit the sand in pursuit of the fading beacon. She ran from rock to rock like they were solid ground out to deeper water and dove in.

(:Van.:) Her mind was focused solely on getting to where she believed she would find Van. She saw something red floating in the water and swam as fast as she could towards it. (:Wait. That's not red, that's pink? Who is that:) When Hitomi reached the floating figure she moved to grab the person to drag them to shore when she noticed a woman in blue coming to just beside her. (:It's a good thing the woman in blue is right next to this person, I would never have seen her otherwise.:)

Hitomi grabbed the one in pink and realized it was girl about her own age. Hitomi shook the girl she was holding and at the same time reached out her other hand to grab the arm of the woman in blue.

"Hey, are you two okay?" Hitomi asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," the woman in blue answered, "just confused." Then she noticed the girl Hitomi was holding, "Fiona! Come on girl wake up!"

"Unnn…" the girl named Fiona moaned and her eyes opened revealing bright red orbs.

Then the woman in blue looked around frantically. "Raven? Raven! RAVEN!" Fear crept into her voice as it rose in volume with each utterance of the name.

(:There must be one more…:) Hitomi thought to herself. She looked around, but couldn't see anyone, of course that didn't mean anything on this moonless night, she could barely see her own hands in front of her face and could only just barely tell that it was blue that the other woman was wearing, and that's only because of the distant street lights.

"Reese, where are we?" Both Reese and Hitomi glanced down at the girl who was floating in Hitomi" arms, she was finally awake.

"I don't know, but right now I don't care, help me find Raven!" The three girls spread out a little and started to comb the water calling Raven's name every couple of seconds.

Suddenly a plume of water shot straight up into the air with a roar. "Specula!" Reese shouted in joy and surprise. "Help me find Raven!"

"Huh? Wha…" was all Hitomi could say. Hitomi couldn't even tell what it was. Whatever it was it dropped back into the water with a splash.

Then she heard growl behind her and spun her head around and saw Fiona talking to what looked like a shiny dinosaur or dragon head. A moment later and the head dipped under water and Fiona swam over to where Reese was and Hitomi joined them.

"Zeke says to remind you that Raven was in the Genobreaker when the light shined so he's looking for that instead of just Raven."

"Oh, I forgot. Ok why don't we all go to shore, the organoids can finish this search a lot faster than we can and we should all get dried off."

(:This Reese woman seems to be handling things really well:) Hitomi thought. The three of them swam to the rock outcropping that Hitomi had used to run out to the deeper water and climbed up on to the boulders. They all lay there breathing heavily for a minute until they caught their breaths.

"Is everybody okay?" Hitomi asked just to be sure.

"I will be," Reese replied. Fiona answered,

"I think so, and thanks for helping us…I don't think I got your name. Mine's Fiona, and this is Reese."

"I'm Hitomi and you're welcome," Hitomi offered. "By the way what were those things in the water with us?"

"Hm?" Fiona had a quizzical look on her face for a moment until she finally understood what Hitomi was talking about, "Those are our organoids, the blue one is Specula and the silver one is Zeke, although I don't know if you can really tell in the dark here."

A few minutes later Zeke and Specula trudged up next to the girls with no one else in tow. "So you couldn't even find the Genobreaker?" Reese asked. Specula shook its head in a sorrowful negative.

"Maybe Raven went somewhere else," Fiona said hopefully. "Probably," Reese said, "Specula should have been able to find the Genobreaker if it was here, even if it is the dead of night."

After a brief pause Hitomi spoke up, "come on, we should change out of our wet clothes. We can go to my house although I don't know if I have anything that will fit either of you comfortably."

As Hitomi went to stand up Reese grabbed her arm, "you might want to stay here a moment and let Specula and Zeke dry you off, I doubt you want to go around in public like that." "Huh…" Hitomi glanced down at herself and immediately dropped back down to the ground, curled up, and crossed her arms over her chest. She had completely forgotten that she was wearing her white nightclothes and when they got soaked from her dive they became see-through. Hitomi's cheeks burned in embarrassment.

"Specula why don't you turn around and turn your verniers on low to help dry her off." "Zeke you too," Fiona chimed in after Reese's command. Specula immediately complied, but Zeke took a moment and presented something to Fiona first, "Oh, thank you Zeke, I completely forgot about this."

Then both organoids took up positions with their backs to Hitomi and lit up their verniers on their lowest levels. Hitomi lay back a little and used her hands as braces behind her back to prop herself up and let the heat wash over herself. (:It's a little warm for my liking, but it beats walking around practically naked.:)

After a minute she rolled over and lay down completely on her stomach and let the hot air dry off her back.

Reese looked Hitomi over real quick, "you should be alright now. Thanks for letting us come to your house."

"It's alright, and thank you for noticing my uh… compromised state. It would have been really embarrassing to walk around like that."

Reese merely nodded. "So, you're from Gaea right?" Hitomi asked.

"Gaea? Where's that?" Fiona was completely befuddled.

"Huh, but you came by pillar of light," now Hitomi was confused (:If they aren't from Gaea, then where:)

"For that matter where are we," Reese asked. "You're on a planet we call Earth, in a country called Japan," Hitomi said.

Reese immediately perked up "Earth…Raven once told me about it. He said it was where his parents came from."

"Huh? Well, I've never heard of it," Fiona said.

"So where are you from then," Hitomi was curious, but wanted to get home too so she got up and dusted off as she spoke.

Fiona steadied Hitomi as she stumbled a moment and then they got going, "We're from a planet called Zi. I'm a citizen of the New Helic Republic there."

"I've never really belonged anywhere on Zi," Reese said quietly.

"Why is that?" Hitomi asked innocently.

"I'm a drifter I guess…" Reese let her voice trail off and looked up at the stars as she walked. "My home was destroyed a long time ago," Reese continued, "Fiona and I are the last of a race of people who lived ages ago on Zi. We are known today as Ancient Zoidians."

When Reese stopped Fiona picked up the story "Some of us were put into stasis in the hopes that we would survive the rampage of a disastrous beast we had let loose upon ourselves. A few years ago I was awakened by a boy named Van…" Fiona stopped talking for a moment as she recalled the moment in her mind, completely missing the startled expression that briefly passed over Hitomi's face.

Hitomi quickly shook her head (:No she can't be talking about my Van. The pronunciation is even different.:) As it was Reese was still looking at the stars so no one had seen her brief lapse of composure.

There was a sudden scream about a block down the road and all three of the girls looked to see a woman pulled, kicking, into an alleyway and a flashlight clatter to the ground at the alley's entrance.

Quickly the girls burst into a sprint, Hitomi quickly outpacing the two Zoidians. None of them were exactly sure what they would or could do when they got there but they couldn't just stand by. When Hitomi was halfway to the alley the organoids Zeke and Specula rocketed past over her head and down into the narrow crevasse between the two buildings.

Two gunshots went off and the woman screamed again followed shortly by the screams of a man. Hitomi halted at the corner and peeked into the alley. The attacker had both of his arms pinned under the feet of Specula and Zeke stood his ground between the man and the woman.

Seeing the situation was under control Hitomi dashed toward the fallen woman, followed closely by Fiona and Reese who had caught up when Hitomi had paused. The woman turned her head and Hitomi shrieked "MOM!"

"Hitomi?" the woman questioned.

"Yes, Mom it's me, what happened to you! Are you okay!" The man continued to jibber senselessly in the background.

"I'll live," The woman said through her gritted teeth and gingerly sat up. The woman turned her head and nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of the organoids, "Hitomi? What are those things?"

"They're my new friends Mom, I found them along with Fiona and Reese here," Hitomi nodded to where Fiona stood. "Hey Fiona, where's Reese?" Hitomi asked.

"She's behind you disarming that man."

"Are you sure that's safe?" Hitomi's mom asked.

"Would you do anything to harm someone if that someone had two two-meter tall metal dragons beside them?" Reese said as she walked back having sent the thug packing without any of his weapons.

"I guess not," Hitomi's mom relented with a small smile and a sigh of relief.

"Where were you hit Mom?" Hitomi asked. The woman slowly lifted her right hand off of the calf of her right leg. Underneath that hand the pant leg had been torn and there was a nasty bullet burn that had taken off a millimeter of skin, but nothing more.

"You'll be fine," Reese said upon looking at it, "but you should probably see a doctor about it soon anyway."

"Here let me help you," Hitomi and Fiona said simultaneously as Hitomi's mom tried to stand up on her own.

"Zeke come over here please," Fiona called. The silver organoid obligingly trudged over and everyone stepped out of the alley onto the main sidewalk so there was room for everyone to stand together. "Zeke would you mind carrying Hitomi's mother for us, her leg is hurt and it pains her to walk on it?" Fiona asked calmly.

"Are you sure that's okay?" Hitomi's mother asked. In response Zeke lowered himself towards the ground to make it easier for Hitomi's mom to get situated.

"Thank you very much, Zeke," Fiona said and Hitomi's mom nodded her thanks as Hitomi and Fiona helped to get her seated on Zeke's back.

"Now let's get back home Hitomi, so I can get my leg bandaged and you can all get off your feet," Hitomi's mother said. As they walked along the sidewalk, Hitomi's mother turned to Fiona, "Thank you very much for all your help, and your friend too. Your name was…Fiona right?"

"Oh, you're very welcome," Fiona said, "My friend's name is Reese, in case you forgot."

Reese started (:She called me her friend? Why? I've done nothing but bring her pain. Have we really grown so close during these short hours since the destruction of the Death Saurer? Or am I reading too much into this:) Reese shook her head to clear her thoughts. (:Still... she didn't deny it outright.:)

"So," Hitomi's mother continued, "where are you girls from?"

"A planet called Zi," replied Fiona, "hey should you be talking this much? You're injured."

"My leg was bruised, not my mouth," Hitomi's mother chuckled a little. "Oh, I almost forgot to introduce myself, you may call me Mrs. Kanzaki, I am Hitomi's mother."

"It's very nice to meet you Mrs. Kanzaki, I only wish it had been under better circumstances," Fiona replied.

"So do I," Mrs. Kanzaki said with a small wry smile. "Hitomi, are you alright?" Mrs. Kanzaki asked, very worried at why her daughter had run out of the house at this time of night.

"I miss him mom," was Hitomi's whispered reply as she choked back the tears welling up in her eyes. Mrs. Kanzaki longed to hug her daughter, but present circumstances prevented her from doings so. So she simply lie back down and let Hitomi sort out her thoughts in silence.

"Turn here," Mrs. Kanzaki said a few minutes later, "Our house is the little tan one over there," she said pointing out her home. She continued, "You are all welcome to stay in our home as long as you like. My husband is away on a business trip and my son, Mamoru, is at summer camp now so it's just the four of us." Specula growled. "Oh, pardon me, the six of us. Oh dear, it may get a little cramped in our humble home."

"Oh, no we couldn't possibly impose on you like this, Reese and I can find someplace else to stay," Fiona apologized.

"But you said yourself that you are from another planet. No one else would understand your customs, or your organoids for that matter, you would be outcasts, and besides you don't have any currency do you. I simply cannot allow that, there must be another solution," Mrs. Kanzaki was adamant about not causing the four newcomers any more undue stress.

At that point the group reached the Kanzaki domicile and Specula promptly sat down under the back porch. When Mrs. Kanzaki saw this she understood what was happening, "are you sure you'll be alright," she questioned the blue organoid. The only response she got was a simple nod of its metallic dragon head.

The other five walked around to the front of the house where Zeke crouched down to let Mrs. Kanzaki off. As Hitomi and Fiona helped Mrs. Kanzaki hobble to the front door, Mrs. Kanzaki looked over her shoulder at the silver organoid, who was just standing there not making a move to go inside, "you too?" Zeke growled and bobbed his head.

"Thank you Zeke," Fiona said, looking back as well. Zeke growled, turned around and trotted around to the back of the house to join Specula.

The four girls and Mrs. Kanzaki went inside, kicked off their shoes, and set Mrs. Kanzaki up on the couch. Then Hitomi went to go call the hospital for an ambulance to pick up her mother. Fiona smiled slightly as she saw that Mrs. Kanzaki was out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillows.

Hitomi walked out of the kitchen with a bunch of bananas in her hands, "anyone hungry?"

"Sure, thank you very much," Fiona said as she took one of the proffered fruit. Reese accepted one as well with a nod of thanks.

About twenty minutes later the paramedics came and took Mrs. Kanzaki to the hospital.

"Why don't we all try to get some sleep," Fiona suggested.

"I don't think I'll be able to," Hitomi said, "I'm too wired up from tonight's events."

"I guess you're right. I am too." Fiona admitted and paused, propping her chin up in her hands. (:There's got to be something we can do to help Hitomi get her mind off of recent things…:)

Reese spoke up, "Well, since none of us is ready to sleep, why don't we talk." Fiona momentarily looked shocked that Reese proposed such a thing. (:It's not that it's not a good idea, in fact it's a great idea, it's just that I didn't take Reese to be the conversational type.:)

Hitomi pounced on the chance to focus on something other than her mother's current situation, "Why don't we talk about ourselves? I'll go first." "My story actually starts several years ago with my grandmother."

Fiona and Reese never actually got the chance to tell their stories that night as Hitomi just continued to rattle on until dawn, essentially finishing a detailed synopsis of the Vision of Escaflowne series. She left out a few of the more embarrassing situations, but was willing to talk about her relationship with Van Fanel.

As predawn approached the girls finally tired and slept sprawled out on the floor on spare comforters that Hitomi had dug out of the closet, easily falling asleep in the warm patches of sunlight that filtered through the windows.

Around noon Fiona got up, grabbed another banana, and went out the back door to visit with the organoids. "Hey Zeke, how are you doing this morning?" Zeke growled an 'okay'. Specula rolled over and accidentally kicked Zeke off the porch, 'not okay,' was Zeke's amendment to his earlier statement as he landed on his chrome dome.

Fiona giggled and Specula sat up, finally awake as well. Zeke rolled over back on to his feet and then plopped himself down back on the porch next to Fiona. "It's a beautiful day isn't it," Fiona commented to Zeke. The silver organoid growled back an 'uh huh.'

Fiona then stood, went out into the back yard and flopped on her back to watch the clouds float by. (:Hey, that one looks like the giant floating papaya that Van had us chasing that one time we skipped breakfast.:) Fiona smiled at the memory and then grew sad again, (:Van, I miss you. Please don't let this parting be fate telling us we weren't meant to be together, because… I just can't imagine going on without you Van.:)

"Hey, Fiona," Hitomi called from the back doorway. Fiona sat up and wiped away the tears that had started forming in her eyes, "Yes, Hitomi? Can I help you?"

"Reese and I were going to go visit my mother at the hospital. Do you want to come?"

"Sure," Fiona brightened up.

Reese stepped out past Hitomi and strode over to Specula. Specula bobbed his head and growled a greeting. "Good morning to you too old friend," Reese said softly as she embraced her organoid. "I'm going out right now and you can't come along for this, the sight of you will cause too much of a stir, okay? So stay here with Zeke and don't cause any trouble." Specula growled an affronted affirmative as if to say 'You could suspect me of being troublesome? It's that silver one over there you should be worried about.' Reese's connection allowed her to pick up on the insinuation, "Of course. You're right," Reese admitted with one of her rare, small, genuine smiles.

"All right let's go," Fiona said when Reese was clearly done, "and you be good now Zeke, okay?" Zeke growled back an 'okay'.

"Actually, hold on a moment," Hitomi said, stepping back and looking at Reese and Fiona. "You need to get into some different clothes. No offense, but your attire is going to draw a few eyes."

"Uh… okay," Fiona said. Reese said nothing. Hitomi found a sky blue blouse and some jeans in her mother's clothes for Reese, since nothing Hitomi owned would fit the taller woman.

Hitomi was also having difficulty finding something for Fiona to wear, just because Hitomi is so much of a toothpick. Then she stumbled across one of Yukari's discarded pink tee shirts that must have been left over from her friend's last sleep over. Hitomi had washed it and would eventually get it back to her friend, but in the mean time she didn't think Yukari would mind too much. Fiona would be fine with her own skirt for now.

When Reese and Fiona had finished changing, the girls shuffled back through the house to the front door, put on their shoes and walked out. When they got outside Hitomi spoke up, "We'll have to walk to the hospital, but it's not far, only a few blocks, maybe a mile." Reese and Fiona nodded that they understood. During the entire twenty-minute walk nobody said anything, just enjoying the blissful silence.

When they reached the hospital, Hitomi approached the receptionist, "My mother came in here last night with a bullet graze, last name Kanzaki."

The receptionist looked at her clipboard, "Um… let's see now… Kanzaki, Kanzaki, Kanzaki… Ah. Here, recovery room, two floors up room 2325A. Just go up that elevator across the room over there to the second floor, when you get out turn left and go to the end of the hall it'll be the last door on your left."

"Thank you very much," Hitomi bowed slightly.

"Not a problem," the receptionist smiled and bowed lightly back.

When the group reached the recovery room as designated, they found Mrs. Kanzaki sitting up and reading a magazine that she promptly put down when she saw them all come in. "Hitomi"! Mrs. Kanzaki called out.

"Momma"! Hitomi called back and hurried across the room to give her mother a hug. "Are you ok mom?" Hitomi asked worriedly.

"Yes, I'm fine, dear," Mrs. Kanzaki assured her daughter, tears shining in her eyes.

"Thank you for letting us stay at your house last night Mrs. Kanzaki," Fiona said, graciously bowing.

"Oh, think nothing of it, I couldn't possibly have let you sleep outside on the cold, hard ground," Mrs. Kanzaki replied, with a small smile.

"Well, at least let us try to explain how we got here, we owe you that much at least," Fiona said.

"Alright," Mrs. Kanzaki agreed and she lay back in the cot. Reese and Fiona pulled up chairs so that they wouldn't have to stand through the whole telling, as Hitomi had taken the first seat that had been by the recovery cot.

"Do you mind if I start, Reese?" Fiona asked. Reese simply shook her head. "Our story actually starts several hundred years ago but the more relevant parts have only happened in the past few years."

As Fiona got to the parts where Reese first appeared to herself and Van she started to skim over the details very lightly so as not to generate any animosity between Reese and anyone else around the cot. Reese reached over and lightly grabbed Fiona's wrist, "It's alright, tell them. It's vital to understanding certain things. Besides, I like to think I've changed at least a little since then."

Fiona had begun to frown and had opened her mouth to protest when Reese had interrupted, but as Reese finished her sentence, Fiona acquiesced and gave a slight nod. Reese didn't offer any further information about herself as the story continued, still feeling a little guilty about her past despite her brave speech earlier.

Fiona continued and told the entire Zoids: Chaotic Century and Guardian Force cycle from her own point of view and filling in a few facts from what Van had told her during their free time between adventures and missions.

After she finished telling the defeat of the second Death Saurer she skipped over her proposal to Van, it was still too near and vulnerable for her to feel comfortable talking about it.

"You poor girls. I…I don't know what to say," Mrs. Kanzaki was speechless. Reese sat back and watched as the three others hugged, each barely holding back tears. Reese could feel her own tears welling behind her eyes. There was just so much emotion in the air that she couldn't help it.

"Wow." Reese heard a whisper of awe come from behind her and she turned to look, tears still brimming. When she found she couldn't focus she turned away quickly to wipe her eyes and then looked back.

"What?" Reese demanded with a scowl of the onlooker, "what do you want?"

"Huh?" the guy snapped out of his daze suddenly realizing he had been staring at the group of girls. "Oh, uh, sorry," he looked away sheepishly. "I didn't mean to eaves drop, it's just so boring in here, and your story was so interesting I couldn't help it," the young man muttered in apology, "sorry."

"Let him be Reese," Fiona said gently, breaking away from the embrace with Hitomi and Mrs. Kanzaki.

"Oh, hello Mike, I didn't realize you were up already," Mrs. Kanzaki spoke up. Mike nodded his head.

"You know him Mom?" Hitomi asked.

"We talked for a few minutes last night," Mrs. Kanzaki answered. "Mike, this is Reese, Fiona, and my daughter Hitomi. Girls this is Mike."

"Hi," they all said quietly.

"So why are you here Mike?" Fiona asked after a long silence.

"I was sparring with practice swords in wushu and I tripped. Unfortunately my opponent was in mid swing and this is what happened," Mike shrugged, and winced as his collarbone grated.

"Mike," Fiona said noticing the discarded neck brace and pointing to it, "isn't that supposed to stop you from being able to hurt yourself like that?"

"It's too constricting," he complained.

"Come on now mike, put it back on," Mrs. Kanzaki chided, "If you don't put it on the doctors will come and complain at you."

Outside the door a nurse paused and smiled as she heard the exchange and the clicking of the neck brace going back on, giving the patient time to settle himself before she went in.

"Good morning everyone," the nurse said politely as she walked into the room. "I have the release forms for both of you, so if you would sign out, you may leave when you are ready."

"Thank you very much," Mrs. Kanzaki said quietly. As the nurse was about to leave the room, she looked over her shoulder pointedly at Mike, "And Mike…you be sure to wear your neck brace for the next week, we'll have you come back an remove it then. No sooner. And don't go fibbing to these nice people here. You don't take wushu, you just fell down the steps you klutz!"

"Yume!" Mike's face burned, and the girls giggled. Yume smiled mischievously and slipped out the door.

"Come on mom, let's get you signed out," Hitomi tugged gently, but insistently on her mother's arm.

"Hey Mike you want to walk downstairs with us?" Fiona asked.

"No, that's okay," he replied, "I'll be another few minutes getting ready, you can go on ahead. I'll see you girls later."

"Okay," Fiona said.

"See you later, it was nice talking to you Mike," Mrs. Kanzaki said in parting.

"Bye," Hitomi and Reese said in unison as they all turned to leave.

When they had gone, Yume stepped back into the room.

"That wasn't very nice of you," Mike said in a mock pouting voice.

"That's what you get for lying, you dodo," Yume smiled and slapped him lightly on the arm. "Come on let's get you signed out of here so I can finish my shift in peace," Yume said as she stood waiting for him.

"All right, I'm coming," Mike finally got up and straightened his neck brace before walking out the door.

Yume followed him out and shut the door to the now empty room behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, finally, here's chapter 3. I know I'm slow at putting these up, but I have no delusions of grandeur here. I write because I feel like it and because I have time. No other reason. At least not right now anyway. I do have Ch. 4 mostly planned out in my head. Actually I was going to put more in to Ch.3 but I decided it was long enough so I bumped it back.

"speech"

(:thought:)

'organoid speech'

(A.N.: recall the time distortion effects in Escaflowne when traveling between Earth and Gaea. They distortions can be whatever they need to be so I'm saying that the five plus hours Raven spent poking around on Zi finding Fiona equivocates to about five days here, so about a week has passed since Flyheight arrived.)

(A.N.: I could not find a translation factor between costa and any other actual known units anywhere online, but the scale models seem to indicate the height of Escaflowne averaging 8 ½ meters tall. Consequently, according to the Escaflowne Compendium at http://escaflowne. the Escaflowne's height is 8.2 costa. Therefore I am going to be lazy and simply say that 1 costa 1 meter and just use the specs provided on that site. If anyone finds information to the contrary please inform me, I'll gladly go back and change it, I'm just being lazy.)

"What's happening, what's going on?!!" Raven yelled. Suddenly Raven felt cold water wash over him through the open cockpit. "What on Zi?!!" The open cockpit quickly filled with water as the Genobreaker sank into the ocean the pillar of light had landed it in. Raven tried to work the controls, but they were sluggish and couldn't move fast enough to extricate the zoid from the water.

As the Genobreaker sank further and further from the surface Shadow grabbed Raven and flew back above the water. When he reached the surface he stopped and cracked open his chest slightly to let the water out, then he resealed it, and as he hovered he looked around for dry land to set down on. (:I can't see anything I need to go higher:) Shadow thought to himself so he flew way up into the air, being careful to mark where the Genobreaker sank.

Then Shadow saw something truly remarkable in the distance: A largish black dragon zoid with expansive dark wings. His interest piqued, he decided to follow it. It didn't take too long for Shadow to find land, so he set down knowing his master would want out, only noting the direction the dragon zoid flew in.

After Raven stumbled out he turned and looked at his friend, "Thanks Shadow." Shadow nodded in return then turned to glance at the receding form of the dragon zoid. At least it should have been receding; instead it had turned around and was now headed straight for them.

"What is that," Raven wondered aloud.

"Are you the ones who just arrived here in that pillar of light?" a voice called from atop the machine.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Raven shouted back, "but could you start by explaining where here is?"

"Climb on and when we land all your questions will be answered," The voice replied.

Raven opened his mouth to ask for help dredging up his zoid, then thought better of it, (:best not to mention something that powerful to an unknown:). Raven and Shadow glanced at each other, shrugged, and climbed on. To their surprise there seemed to be no one piloting.

"Please hold on tight, but don't touch the control rods," a voice came from what they could now identify as a speaker. Hours later they touched down in the center of what looked like it used to be a technological metropolis.

"Welcome, I am Doctor Ferdot, and these are my associates, Doctors Kline and Sal."

Raven looked down on the Doctors before deftly hopping off the winged zoid. "My name is Raven, this is my friend Shadow."

"Friend?" Dr. Sal asked, perplexed.

"Yes, friend. Now before we go any further, tell me, where is this place?"

"You are on the planet Gaea, currently in the remains of what used to be the most powerful empire on the planet: the Zaibach Empire."

"Looks like you guys haven't fared too well," Raven remarked, taking note of the scenery.

"Yes, the outer city has fallen into disrepair after the war ended a year ago."

"War?" Raven inquired.

"Our former head, Master Dornkirk, tried to develop a machine that would grant the desires of all people on Gaea. But the rest of the planet was too narrow minded to understand, so, in fear of the machine's power, they rose up in revolt."

Raven simply nodded. Dr. Kline spoke, "I suppose really don't want to hear all about this, you just want to get home right?"

"Actually I'm looking for someone, but eventually, yes I do want to go home."

"Well I don't know what we can do about the first part, we simply don't have the resources to search the entire population of Gaea, if your friend is even here. On the second count, however we can probably be of more use."

"I'm all ears," Raven said.

"You see the machine behind you," Dr. Ferdot pointed and Raven and Shadow stepped aside and turned so as to see both the doctor and the zoid at the same time.

"It is linked to the same power that brought you here. We believe that if you are able to master the machine you may be able to manipulate the power and send yourself home."

"Then let's get started," Raven said and turned toward the machine.

"Wait one moment Raven." Dr. Sal spoke up.

"What," Raven turned his eyes on the three scientists.

"You may have noticed that no one was directly piloting the machine, we call it the EX-Ispano, EX for short, on your trip here. Right now it is currently configured for remote command input only. We must reconfigure it for piloted flight. However, this must wait for morning."

"Why is that," Raven asked, frustrated.

"When we spotted you on our external cameras, we had just finished a trial run of the basic systems. Two things must now happen before reconfiguration. Firstly, the trial data must be downloaded and analyzed. Secondly the three of us must sleep. We are tired old men and you wouldn't want us making a mistake on the installation."

"Fine," Raven said, letting up.

Dr. Ferdot smiled, "we can at least put you up for the night, there is a room, just up those stairs and at the end of the catwalk."

"If it's all the same to you I think I'll just poke around for a bit," Raven said.

"Just don't impale yourself on any debris," Dr. Sal joked.

Raven didn't even bother responding he just turned and walked past the EX-Ispano and out the hangar doors, Shadow right on his heels.

"This way gentlemen," Dr. Ferdot instructed his comrades. He pressed a few buttons and the machine dragon sauntered over to a large freight elevator. The doctors joined it and rode the elevator down to the laboratory.

"Look at this mess Shadow," Raven commented. Shadow growled in agreement. Raven let out a relieved chuckle, "it almost looks as if the DeathSaurer walked through here." As if saying it reminded his body of the recent battle he'd been through, he suddenly felt very tired and his legs wobbled. He couldn't even bother to walk back to the hangar and up the steps to the room the doctors said was free. He simply staggered over to a wall and lay down beside it, asleep almost as soon as his head came to rest on his arm. Shadow curled up next to his master and slept with one eye open for the night.

Raven awoke as sunlight filtered through the perpetual haze that covered the city capital of Zaibach. As he stirred Shadow growled and got up as well. Raven heard the whining of hydraulics and went back into the hangar mostly refreshed from a night's rest on hard ground. As he walked in he saw a new machine rising from below the surface, this one was humanoid in figure, but the same matte black color as the dragon.

It didn't take Raven long to notice that several features on the machine were very similar to the dragon, for example the chest looked like the top of the dragon's head and the gem in the humanoid's chest looked as though it were being grasped by the dragon's claw. When the elevator stopped Raven estimated the height of the machine to only be a little over 8 meters tall. Raven smirked, (:It's only a little taller than a command wolf and not even nearly as massive. But, size isn't everything, we'll see what its got:).

"Ah, Raven," Doctor Kline greeted with a muted smile. "Would you like something to eat before we get started," Dr. Ferdot asked.

"Sure," Raven said, "uh thanks," Raven surprised himself by adding. The sense of honor that he'd gained through watching Van had rooted deeper into Raven's personality than he had realized.

After breakfast Raven returned to the hangar to find the scientists huddled on top of the EX, now in dragon mode. "Hey, Raven, could you come up here, we need to calibrate the controls to take your input," Dr. Sal called down. Raven clambered up and stood in the pilot's position. Dr. Sal handed him the control rods and the doctors all ran him through a series of maneuvers designed to acquaint the man and the machine with each other. After about only a half an hour Raven was ready to give it a test fly.

"One more thing," Dr. Kline spoke up, "we discovered an interface port and protocol in the heart of the EX, but we're not sure what goes there. We suspect that whatever piece fits there is the key to unlocking the true power of the EX. In other words, we don't think you can go home until we find that device."

"That's just as well," Raven said, "I need time to find my friends." (:I'm fairly certain they're talking about the zoid core of the EX when they say the heart,:) Raven thought to himself, (:so the interface they're referring to is probably the organoid hook up system. But these guys don't need to know that right now, I need time to find Van, Fiona, and Reese, I can't go home until I find them.:)

The doctors dismounted and Raven finally got completely settled into the pilot's position. He took hold of the control rods and abruptly froze. (:This machine is feral. It's not just that it isn't tame, it's almost like a blood lust that I can feel. This is dangerous, I'm going to have to be careful with the EX, but I will need to learn how to operate it eventually if this is indeed our best chance home.:) Raven walked the EX outside the hangar, it moved almost like a cat, it wasn't exactly graceful, but it managed to present a presence of being both tense and calm at the same time.

(:All right, let's see what you've got.:) Raven pulled back on the control rods and the EX leaped upwards and after a few deep wing beats it was safely cruising up in the sky, Shadow close behind. Even while wheeling about up in the sky, Raven could not shake the feeling of being just on the edge of losing control of the EX. (:It keeps saying it wants more, like some kind of adrenaline junkie.:)

"Raven, can you hear me?" Dr. Sal's voice came through a speaker that Raven hadn't noticed before. "If you can just speak up, the receiver is on."

"Yes I can hear you," Raven said, "what do you want?" One of the displays changed to show what Raven assumed to be a map.

"We would like you to check out the red dot on the screen, it's where we did our testing yesterday, the green diamond is the hangar, and the EX is always centered in the screen, with straight ahead pointing to the top of the screen."

"That's awful far to go, just for a test flight," Raven said.

"We were testing the range and endurance of the EX among other things," Dr. Kline said over the radio, "we were also conducting a field test of the guymelef mode, the humanoid form. If you wouldn't mind we'd like to run you through a similar battery in the same area. It should only take about an hour to reach your destination."

Raven wasn't used to taking orders from anyone but himself, and this didn't sit well with him either, but he swallowed his pride for now. He really had no reason to not go, and he'd rather not have them annoy him over the radio if they were so inclined, as he had no idea how to turn it off, and anyway, his hands were full at the moment. Gradually, as the trip wore on, the EX began to settle down as it realized that nothing exciting was going to happen for a while. As the coastline of the testing grounds came into view, so also did an airship with a strange coat of arms. The EX went berserk.

It dove out of the sky towards the airship, "What are you doing!!" Raven shouted at the EX and yanked the control rods hard. The EX flipped and grabbed a ball of dark light that had been streaking towards it. Raven looked over the edge in horror, "LET GO OF SHADOW RIGHT NOW!!!" Instead of complying the EX forcibly fused the organoid into itself. "SHADOW!!!"

Suddenly the EX transformed in mid air into guymelef mode and plummeted the last thirty meters to the ground. Raven found himself inside of a fully encapsulating cockpit instead of in the open air as he had been when in dragon mode. Raven could hear shadow scream in pain just below him.

"Stop th…" Raven was cut off in mid sentence when dozens of hypodermic needles drove themselves into various nerve clusters in Raven's body implanting bioelectrical sensors everywhere. Raven didn't even have time to scream, the pain was so intense that it overwhelmed his body and he blanked out.

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Van Flyheight was standing at the front windows of Fanelia's newly acquired leviship the Corsura. Fanel had told him it was a gift from Allen, and what a nice gift it was. Slightly larger in size to the Crusade, and a drastically different design, it was actually a little faster too, and certainly much faster than the merchant ships they were trying to find right now.

"Hey," Flyheight said in greeting when Fanel came up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder. Fanel opened his mouth to reply, but his body went stiff and his face looked pale.

"Something's coming," the King whispered, and he dashed to the starboard side of the Corsura, followed closely by the zoid pilot. They both looked out and up through the Corsura's bulging windows and saw a black machine hurtling towards them.

As the nimble midnight machine flipped, this time it was Flyheight's turn to be shocked, "Raven?" Flyheight barely caught a glimpse of the pilot as the dark dragon zoid hurtled past, but he could have sworn it was him. "No it couldn't be," Flyheight said out loud.

"Why not," Fanel said, "you were drawn here. Perhaps, since his life was so closely bound to yours, he was brought as well." The two shielded their eyes as a bright light glared from the ground below.

They both looked, "hey that looks an awful lot like your…" Flyheight started.

"Yes, I know, my Escaflowne," Fanel finished for him. "Captain, retreat to a safe distance! I'm going out to try and find out what's going on." Without even waiting for a reply the two Vans started running back towards the hangar bay. "This must be the dark dragon the messenger spoke of."

"But why would Raven be piloting it," Flyheight continued the train of thought, "I can't just believe he's gone nuts like this. There's got to be some sort of mistake here."

"Well, let's go find out." Fanel slapped the hatch release and then he and Flyheight jumped into a prototype vehicle, a leviskimmer. It was a slender two person variant on leviships, and it used four very small levistones to fly. It had been on the Corsura when the leviship itself had been given to Fanelia. Allen had told Van that it was a new idea, but that nobody in his or her right mind wanted to test it because small levistones were too unpredictable.

The leviskimmer rocketed out of the hangar and then dropped like a rock for several feet before Fanel got it under control. "This leviskimmer is so light it helps if we turn with our weight, so when you feel the leviskimmer move, you follow unless you think we're gonna capsize, got it?" Fanel relayed.

"Understood," Flyheight replied. The black zoid Escaflowne was now in guymelef form on the ground below them staring up. Fanel swooped and stopped just outside of arm's reach of the machine. "Raven!!" Flyheight called, "Raven are you in there!?" No reply.

"If you're not Raven, then who are you!?" Fanel shouted. Still no reply.

"Answer me!! Who are you!?" Flyheight yelled again.

A few moments later the eyes of the seemed to shimmer and the zoid's right hand reached behind it's head almost faster than the eye could perceive. If Fanel had not recognized the motion for what it was and yanked the leviskimmer backwards and up the sword that flowed through their previous position less than half a second later would surely have slammed the two young men to the ground. Unfortunately it still wasn't enough as the draft from the speedy sword swing sent the unsteady leviskimmer twirling through the air and eventually crashing into the ground.

As the zoid-like machine approached the wreck it paused seeing no bodies. It did a quick scan of the area and found the Fanelian king flying up towards the leviship holding one of Flyheight's arms in both of his own.

The black Escaflowne crouched and then leaped, transforming in midair to dragon form. "Here it comes!" Flyheight shouted to Fanel as he saw the black dragon take off.

"Crud, neither we nor the Corsura can outrun that thing, gotta think of something," Fanel thought out loud, meanwhile tucking in his wings to dive out of the way as the dark Escaflowne passed just over head.

"Oh no…" Flyheight spoke out loud as he saw two guymelefs drop from the Corsura.

"NO!! YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE, GET AWAY!!" Fanel yelled, tears streaming from his eyes, in vain at two of the guard guymelef units that had accompanied him from Fanelia.

Colonel Alvin didn't even know what hit him, as the dragon passed overhead it simply opened its tail and let the sword fall, it bisected the guymelef and pilot on the way to the ground. Alvin's partner Quar had both his guymelef's and his own head ripped off by the dragon's outstretched claw.

Fanel and Flyheight's eyes widened in shock at their comrades deaths and at the brutal power required to dispatch two guymelefs in just five seconds. The dragon wheeled and came back for its initial quarry. As it did Flyheight saw why the sword had only to be dropped to cut a machine in half.

"Fanel, don't let that sword touch you it's an energy blade like the Blade Liger's!"

Fanel promptly flipped over and power-dove towards the ground as the sword whizzed over them. Fanel then flared his wings, not for breaking but just to alter direction and utilize the velocity they had gained to skim blazing fast just meters over the wreckage of the nation of Basram.

"Stay out of sight," Fanel said to Flyheight.

"Huh?" queried a befuddled Flyheight as the Fanelian king dropped him at full speed, just barely making it to the coastline. Flyheight skipped like a stone twice and then slowed to a stop. It only took him a moment to realize what was happening and he quickly took a deep breath and dove under the water while Fanel used his remaining speed to try and gain some altitude to work with.

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The three scientists watched the video feed with rapt attention as the EX forcefully fused with Shadow and took over Raven. "We thought this might happen," Dr. Kline said, and the two others nodded in agreement with him.

"Interesting contraption, but quite useless," Dr. Sal commented when the leviskimmer came into view.

"Wait a second!! Look at this!" Dr. Ferdot said excitedly, pointing to his monitor.

"This… this unity reading is off the scale!" Dr. Sal exclaimed, "and it's for the passenger on that small leviship."

"I'm on it," Dr. Kline turned back to his own interface and opened the voice command for unit for the EX. "Change in plans. Grab the passenger, still eliminate everything else." The affirmative light winked on as the EX unit itself accepted the order.

As the fight began Dr. Sal made a puzzled sound.

"What is it?" Dr. Kline inquired.

"Oh, we just had a small hiccup in accepting that command." Dr. Sal said, "It appears the smaller machine had not been quite completely integrated yet and so it slowed the initial sword draw, that's why it missed. Don't worry, it's been suppressed now."

The scientists returned to the video feed just in time to see the EX drop into the water. A few moments later it flapped its wings and rose up, the sword now returned to the tail and in its place in the right hand claw was a struggling young man.

"Objective one acquired. Proceeding to objective two." A synthesized voice came from the speakers.

"Belay that order, return to base," Dr. Kline spoke into the microphone.

"You said I could destroy more," the voice sounded almost as if it was sulking.

"We can't risk hurting the primary objective, maybe later, and next time… don't question orders," Dr. Ferdot lectured the EX's AI.

"Affirmative, all orders accepted, returning to base," the EX responded over the speakers.

As Dr. Ferdot was about to shut down the machine Dr. Sal spoke up, "one more thing." Dr. Sal took the controls, "EX, this is Dr. Sal. Dump your current pilot on the way home. Keep the small machine and the objective, but the pilot is trash. Switch to autonomous mode when this is complete and continue in that mode. Oh and make it quick."

"Affirmative," the EX replied. "Ejecting pilot."

"RAVEN!" The doctors heard the voice of the objective over the still active external microphone pick up, Dr. Sal promptly flipped a switch and turned that speaker off.

"Switching to autonomous mode. Beginning ignition sequence. Firing… ETA: Twenty minutes."

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"RAVEN!" Van Flyheight shouted as he could only watch helplessly as Raven fell like a rag doll and streaming blood to the ocean surface below. Suddenly the dragon squeezed him a little tighter around the middle and he passed out as the boosters ignited, sending Van and the EX hurtling towards Zaibach.

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Van Fanel groaned as he awoke to the Corsura setting down on the shoreline. The dark Escaflowne had barely flicked him with its tail on the way by as he tried to stop it from making off with the other Van. This had broken both of his wings, and his ribs had bruised, maybe fractured, he couldn't tell, on impact with the water. The ocean waves had easily washed him back ashore.

As Van began to push himself up he winced as his wings took on their own weight. (:I won't be able to fly with these for a while. I should also have them set before I try to retract them.:)

"King Van!" a couple of his men called out to him. He raised his hand in reply instead of yelling back, he didn't want to find out what it would be like to try to yell with bruised ribs.

When the men arrived Van had gotten to his feet, although wobbly, he could stand and insisted on doing so. He turned to the captain, "Are Alvin and Quar…" he couldn't bring himself to finish the statement. "I'm afraid they're gone sir," The captain of the Corsura said.

Colonel Quar had been an orphan who had signed up after the war, hoping that maybe he could payoff his debt to his King and country for stopping the bloodshed.

Alvin had been a Colonel that he actually didn't know really well. A rarity for a Royal Guard, Van had made it a point to know each of them personally, to understand them and their strengths and weaknesses. Colonel Alvin had been newly appointed just before Van went out inspecting the pillar of light, to take the place the aging General Narsima had only recently vacated. Normally he wouldn't have taken one of the new Guards, but he had come personally recommended by Narsima himself. Van had been hoping he might get to know Alvin later in this trip, but now that would never happen.

As Van turned to go inspect the damage to the guymelefs himself, he stumbled over his own weak feet and found himself face to face with another of his other Royal Guards and that Guard's personal student, both on their knees, heads bowed, and holding their swords of rank out to him.

"My Lord," both said in unison. The Guard spoke up, "Forgive us, we were weak. When we saw what happened to Alvin and Quar, how easily they were slain, we were filled with fear and could not move. Please do with us as you would any deserter."

"I'm just glad you're both ok, Shin, Ivan. I don't mean to demean your skills, but you would not have lasted long out here. I'm glad you both stayed behind." The two men looked up completely bewildered. "I know it's your duty Shin," Van cut in before they could speak up, " and by default you take it upon yourself as well Ivan even though you are not yourself a Guard. But," Van paused as he searched for the right words to say, "Well, for one thing, I wouldn't be doing my self a favor getting rid of one of my own Guards. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good Guard?" Van asked with a slight grin on his face. "As for Ivan, he's your student Shin, he's your charge."

"If I may my Lord. If I was truly a good Guard I would not have hesitated," Shin put in.

Van Fanel sighed, slightly exasperated, "Soldier. Are you questioning my judgment in picking my own Royal Guards? I do pick them myself, if you recall," the Fanelian king said with a weary tone as he stood back up. No reply came. "Now go help with the recovery of the guymelefs."

"Yes my Lord," Shin and Ivan said together, and quickly left.

The ship's medic came carrying her bag of supplies. She took one look at his wings and gasped a little. "One moment My Lord, this will hurt a bit," the doctor said as she approached Van's left wing. (:Compound fracture…and broken in two places. I have to make sure I don't make the fractures worse while I set the breaks.:)

Iris, the doctor, set her bag down and opened it getting out some splints and setting them on top of the bag. She turned again to the wing and reached gently for the first break. A swift jerk and a hiss of pain from king Van and the first break was set. Iris clamped a small splint over the first break temporarily, then moved and repeated the same procedure to the second. Once she clamped a larger splint over both left wing breaks and the fractures she moved to the right wing.

The right wing was only broken in one place but it was really broken. The bone was slightly crushed because of its hollow nature and then it protruded out the back of the wing. (:It's a wonder Lord Van hasn't passed out from this yet.:) Iris thought to herself.

She gave it a swift yank out and then a sharp tug backwards to set it in place then place as Van let out a pained cry. Once she got the last splint on she picked up her bag. "Lord Van that should be good enough for you to be able to fold your wings enough for you to get on the Corsura, but I'm nowhere near done with you. Once in the infirmary I'm going to do a better job in the cleaner environment."

"Understood. Thank you Iris. Lead the way."

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Landing hard on the water jolted Raven awake. However, he almost immediately passed out again from blood loss, but he managed to maintain consciousness. (:This is bad. If I don't die from blood loss, I'll probably become a snack for something real quick.:)

As Raven finally began succumbing to sleep he felt himself being pulled along by the arm, not by a set of teeth, but rather by a pair of soft hands. His eyes fluttered open one last time and through his blurry vision he saw a human body attached to…a fin? (:A…a mermaid?:)

Raven finally fell asleep.


End file.
